Road Trip Restrooms

One of the adventures of being on a roadtrip are the restroom adventures you have on the trips you are on. On my most recent road trip we had plenty of adventures.

Despite my disparaging remarks about Texas landscaping, I must admit the Texas/Oklahoma border has the most wonderful bathroom on planet earth. As one enters the Lone Star State, one discovers that instead of a typical rest stop, Texas has the Taj Majal of potties for its newly discovered travellers. The whole trip, in order to avoid my typical travel sickness, I chose to treat myself to plenty of fluids (especially water). So, as I entered taj majal toilets incorperated I rushed to the restroom. To my shock, the whole room shined and was beautifully lit. You could see your reflection in the freshly mopped floors, and the stools were sparkling clean. In four days of travel I only sat down in one public restroom, and this was it. It was almost fresh and beautiful and clean enough of a restroom that I would have felt comfortable eating a meal inside of it (I said almost, Sarah).

On the way to the restroom, there was an air-conditioned theater room with the weather channel on television and room for nearly 30 people. The other side of the room was a travellers bonanza, with maps and details about every public park, free state maps (which we needed) and tourist guides.

The rest of the restrooms on the trip were less impressive. There was one restroom in Oklahoma that had napkins from the truck stop deli for TP, and where I had to stand on one leg because someone urinated on the floor.

There was another restroom where a man strove to strike up a conversation with me and I had never met him. He chose to start this conversation while I was using the toilet.For those of you who are non-male, in man world this is a major faux pax. This behavior stirs up nearly every homophobic instinct in a healthy heterosexual man's heart, especially in truck stop restroom in Oklahoma where every other customer reminds you of someone from the movie Deliverance.

Other than the Texas rest stop, the most pleasant restrooms were in new Shell stations along the road (Edmond, OK).

What are your experiences with public restrooms? What phobias do you have? What unique ideosyncrecies do you have in dealing with public restroom issues?